Every April Mound Visit should start with a reminder to resist the siren calls of small sample sizes, however tempting it may be.
And, wow, is it tempting with Wil Crowe.
After an up-and-down rookie season where Crowe led the team in starts (25) but posted replacement level production (0 rWAR, 5.48 ERA over 116 ⅔ innings), he became one of the guinea pigs for how the Pirates will deploy their relievers, going multiple innings an outing.
The results have been terrific thus far, going 9 ⅔ scoreless with 10 strikeouts and a three inning save against the Cubs Wednesday.
“I didn’t think my first decision of the year was going to be a save, that’s for sure,” Crowe told me this week.
Again, it’s a small sample size, but in the history of the Pirates, there have only been four Pirate relievers who have gone at least two shutout innings in each of their first four outings of the season: Leftie Leifield in 1910 (six), Bill Werle in 1951(five), Mike Williams in 1998 (four) and Crowe.
It’s a bit of a gerrymandered stat, but only nine relief pitchers in baseball history have started their season with five or more outings that meet that criteria. When Crowe takes the bump again, presumably in a few days, he could be flirting with a tiny bit of baseball history.
Crowe isn’t the first pitcher who struggled as a starter only to find some success as a reliever, but he isn’t just relying on the extra fastball velocity that usually comes with the role change or facing hitters where he has the hand advantage. He’s still going through the full lineup and has thrown at least 41 pitches in three of those four outings, meaning he isn’t just emptying the tank for one frame.
There's no other way to cut it: He's pitching better.
The keys for Crowe’s success come from a couple changes he’s made mechanically and to his approach, yielding some of the best early results in the young major-league season.
THE TEMPO
If you ask Derek Shelton, this is the biggest change from Crowe a year ago. In 2021, Crowe would regularly slow down between pitches, resulting in some of the longest games the Pirates would play in all season. This year, he’s been a lot snappier and more consistent. He’s been going right after hitters, both in terms of pitch locations and pace.
“When his tempo stays very quick, his ability to attack guys [improves],” Shelton said.
In years past, FanGraphs kept track of a pitcher’s tempo with the Pace stat, which took the Pitchf/x timestamps and averaged how long it took to retire hitters, excluding step offs, mound visits and almost anything that would slow down the flow of the game. Unfortunately, this stat is no longer tracked, so we don’t have a true gage for where Crowe stood in relation to the rest of the league in 2021.
I did, however, track his final inning against the Nationals Sunday where he faced as fearsome a 2-4 in the lineup as you will find anywhere: Juan Soto, Nelson Cruz and Josh Bell. From the time the first pitch hit the mitt to the time the final pitch reached the catcher or was put into play, Crowe averaged 18.5 seconds between pitches against Soto, 18.6 seconds against Bell and, if you excuse a 15 second pause for Cruz to get another bat after he splintered the first one, 18.3 seconds to Cruz. That's a groove.
For reference, I took a look at a start from Crowe for last year on August 29, which I crowned the most average Crowe start of the season (5 innings, three earned runs, five hits, three walks, four strikeouts). Looking at at-bats with a decent sample of pitches (between four to seven) with no runners on base (thus eliminating variables that could slow him down like pickoffs, stepping off the rubber to hold the runner or messing with timing), I clocked him at paces of 20 seconds, 17.2 seconds, 22.3 seconds, 19.3 seconds, 20.5 seconds and 21.8 seconds. Not only is he usually taking more time between pitches, the tempo range is much larger. He wasn’t in a “get the ball, get the sign, throw the ball” groove.
Sure, I’m referencing just two games, but it’s hard to argue that Crowe is working more quickly now.
THE ARM ACTION
Crowe was one of several Pirates pitchers who trained remotely at Tread Athletics this winter, giving himself his first new offseason training program in four years. There, the focus was on hip and ankle mobility and something he and Oscar Marin had talked about before the lockout began, more consistent arm action.
At times in 2021, Crowe would pull back too far on his windup, which would create one of two problems. Either his upper and lower half wouldn’t be in sync on the delivery, or he would get back in sync by speeding up his movement going forward. When it was the latter, it would create unwanted pitch movement.
“On my breakdown, when my arm was way back, it would be super quick [going forward], and everything would cut and be off the plate, instead of in sync and in rhythm,” Crowe explained.
While it’s not a perfect representation of his approach, generally speaking, Crowe usually throws his sinker and changeup to the edge of the plate on his arm side. When throwing those pitches in 2021, he surrendered 28 batted balls that had an exit velocity of at least 100 mph. Almost all of them missed that spot on the edge and crept over the heart of the plate. That screams unwanted cut:
Minimizing those pitches over the heart of the plate is not going to limit hard contact, but also let the slider tunnel better.
“I’m not forcing balls into places,” Crowe said. “I’m just throwing the ball.”
That’s key for getting a more consistent changeup, which is considered to be his best pitch. Speaking of which…
THE PITCH USAGE
Back in spring training, Crowe said he was planning on throwing his changeup more. That’s pretty common spring training talk, but going based on his early results in Bradenton, it looked like a distinct possibility.
"I think when you look at the numbers after last year and see how it plays, throwing the changeup more is something that I wanted to do, and I'm making a conservative effort to do it this year,” Crowe said Sunday. “To get guys out and get through innings the way I want to, that's what I got to do."
Going by results, Crowe’s best pitches last year were the changeup and slider. So what has he done this year? Throw a ton of changeups and sliders.
Consider his pitch chart from Sunday:
Crowe threw 50 pitches on the afternoon: 19 sliders, 13 changeups, seven curves, seven sinkers and four four-seamers. On the year, he’s thrown more sliders (54) and changeups (47) than fastballs (60 in total). He’s barely throwing any heat, but the offspeed and breaking stuff is still playing.
In a Mound Visit this offseason, I theorized that Crowe would benefit from moving away from the four-seamer in favor of the sinker. He’s taken that to a new level by becoming more of a junkballer.
Talking with Roberto Pérez, he told me that he would like to see Crowe throw the four-seamer a little more, which is something we could see as the season progresses. He is getting another tick on it as a reliever, and with the new arm action, it could play better. Sticking with an offspeed and breaking ball heavy approach is probably his best course of action, though.
THE MENTALITY
Wait, isn’t this an analytics feature? Are we really going to close this piece talking about the mental side of the game?
It’s important to bring this up because Crowe definitely looks more comfortable on the mound. Part of that, he says, is because he went through a full season last year and knows the ebbs and flows now.
“Last year, I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not as confident as I am now,” Crowe said. “Not because I pitched great last year, but because I did it for a year.”
As a result, he now pitches with what he calls an “F you” mentality. If you want a more G-rated version, Pérez says he’s “pitching confident.”
That’s key in all of this. You need confidence to throw your offspeed stuff more than the fastball. If you’re on the attack, you’re going to have the right tempo. If you trust your process and don’t overthink, mechanical changes become more natural.
When all that’s happening, his outings look like what we’ve seen so far.
